Rostows Modernization Theory Article

Technological advances happen everyday and in everyplace. As these technologies spread throughout the world, societies are becoming more industrialized. This industrialization will usually occur in four stages. The first is the Traditional Stage. In this stage, people hold on to cultural traditions and refuse to change. These societies are typically poor and their life is focused around communities and they follow well-worn paths. Because of these traditions these people find it hard to imagine life as another way and with little opportunity for advancement, the traditions continue on.

The second stage is called the Take-off Stage. In this stage people start to shake off the traditional family ties and start looking for self advancement. A market emerges as people start to produce goods for trade as opposed to producing them for themselves. Individualism and a stronger achievement orientation take hold.

The third stage is called the Drive to Technological Maturity. In this stage the “growth” that people first discovered in the Take-off Stage is now widely accepted and is the driving force behind a societies’ desire for higher living standards. A diverse economy drives an industrialized people. Unfortunately, people start to realize that the family ties they once held so dear are being eroded away. However, poverty has greatly declined, schooling is available to all people, and knowledge sparks people’s demands for greater political rights. People begin to be held as equals and urbanization reaches even the most rural of villages.

The fourth and final stage in Rostow’s Stages of Modernization is High Mass Consumption. In this stage, economic development driven by industrial technology steadily raises the standards of living. Mass production stimulates mass consumption causing people to “need” the massive amounts of goods being produced.

All countries that are becoming more modern have either gone through or are...

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Modernization is an inherently optimistic concept for it assumes that all countries eventually experience economic growth. This optimistic must be understood in the historical context of post war prosperity and growth in the north and independence of many southern colonies along with the growth of national markets and trades. The theory of modernization turns out into the high mass consumption and urbanization. The theory of economic growth is an alternative to Marxist theory.
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...KENYATTA UNIVERSITY
UNIT CODE: UCU 101
UNIT NAME: DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES
LECTURER: MR. MASINDE
TASK: A DISCUSSION OF THE ROSTOW FIVE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
GROPU MEMBERS
NAME REGISTRATION NUMBER SIGNATURE
NYABUTO MEPHINE BWARI E37/1523/2011 ………………………
BARAZA A. DANIEL E37/1625/2011 ………………………
LUMONYE FAITH JUMA E35S/11325/2010 ………………………
DOUGHLAS NYAKUNDI E37/1509/2011 ………………………
FREDDICK ACHACH E37/1614/2011 ………………………
Rostow’s five stages of Development
This theory was written by Walt Whiteman Rostow. In 1960 he suggested countries go through fairly linearly and set out number of conditions that were likely to occur in investment, consumption and social trends at each state. He also said that a country undergoes transitional periods at varying lengths so as to acquire a stabilized economy. He came up with five linear stages of development. These stages include: traditional societies, precondition to take off, take off, and drive to maturity and finally the age of mass consumption.
Stage 1: Traditional societies
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...rW.W. Rostow and the Stages of Economic Growth
One of the key thinkers in twentieth century Development Studies was W.W. Rostow, an American economist and government official. Prior to Rostow, approaches to development had been based on the assumption that "modernization" was characterized by the Western world (wealthier, more powerful countries at the time), which were able to advance from the initial stages of underdevelopment. Accordingly, other countries should model themselves after the West, aspiring to a "modern" state of capitalism and a liberal democracy. Using these ideas, Rostow penned his classic Stages of Economic Growth in 1960, which presented five steps through which all countries must pass to become developed and these are traditional society, preconditions to take-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and age of high mass consumption. The model asserted that all countries exist somewhere on this linear spectrum, and climb upward through each stage in the development process:
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